Chapter XIThe Maintenance of Bases

A GREAT deal has been said, thus far, about the Base Maintenance
Division but very little about the maintenance of bases. So far
as its history until 1944 is concerned, the Division might more appropriately
have been named the Base Establishment Division. Its preoccupation
with establishment was natural. In the first place, bases
had to be created before they could be maintained. Secondly, during
the months when the efficacious techniques which have been discussed in
the preceding chapters were being worked out by a necessarily inexperienced
and an insufficient staff, there was a firm belief in Op-30 that
maintenance was properly a bureau function. Indeed even as late as
February 1944, Captain Thompson categorically declared that the Bureaus
were responsible for maintenance.1
Still later, the creation of the
Electronics Division of Operations stimulated a study in Op-30 of pertinent
directives, General Orders, and Navy Regulations which disclosed
that cognizance over base maintenance had been explicitly allocated to
no agency whatever.

This vacuum had been filled by the Bureaus for the task
appeared to be little more than an extension of peace time operations
with which, in contrast to establishment, they were entirely familiar

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while CNO was not. In fact, such was the nature of the Navy's supply
system that the major portion of maintenance was accomplished by field
activities without any reference to Washington. The standard procedure
had two principal elements. Certain classes of consumables, such as
foods, were forwarded under a system of automatic supply based upon
well-established usage factors. Other materials were provided in compliance
with requisitions submitted to the supply depot which was
nearest the requisitioning activity or which seemed most likely to
possess a stock of the desired items. It was only when the size of
maintenance activity became so great that it was inextricably enmeshed
in broader logistic problems or when non-Naval military agencies were
involved that CNO entered directly into the maintenance picture.

Two examples will serve to illustrate the action of CNO. One
was the plan worked out in June and July 1942 by Op-12, in conjunction
with the Army, for the supply of the bases newly established along the
line of communication with Australia. Here there were two main consideration.
One was the conservation of shipping. It was manifest a
greater economy in the use of the limited available cargo capacity would
result from the much shorter haul implicit in a maximum utilization of
local and of Australian and New Zealand sources of supply. Such was
the purpose underlying the creation in June of a Joint (Army-Navy-Marine
Corps) Purchasing Board in New Zealand under the Commander,
South Pacific Area.3
The second example was CNO's action in the

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elaboration of a clear, simple and standard system for the supply of
the various bases and their constituent units. In this case, the primary
problem derived from the joint Army-Navy nature of the bases
and from the fact the formal plans for the establishment of the several
bases were mutually inconsistent. Part of the difficulty had its origin
in the independent and very different systems of supply of the two services.
Agencies as varied in nature, authority, and situation as the
Service Force of the Pacific Fleet, the Naval Supply Depot, Oakland,
the Hawaiian Department, and the San Francisco Port of Embarkation,
to mention only the more important, were all involved in the logistic
process. The plans for the several bases assigned responsibility for
the same classes of supplies to different authorities. COnfusion was
the inevitable result, particularly since the supply agencies in one
service not only were not informed of the action of those in the other,
but often did not even know what, if any, was their opposite member.
After considerable study and negotiations with the Army, Op-12 formulated
an overall plan for the supply of the bases in question which was promulgated
on 15 July 1942 over the signature of the Vice Chief of Naval
Operations and the Commanding General, Service of Supply.

This Joint Logistic Plan outlined the whole situation. It
summarized the products which were available in New Zealand and Australia,
announced the existence of the Joint Purchasing Board, assigned
comprehensive responsibility, so far as the Navy was concerned, to the
Service Force Subordinate Command, South Pacific Force, under the overall
control of the Commander, South Pacific Area, and to the San

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Francisco Port of Embarkation for the Army, under the supervision of the
Commanding General, United States Army Forces in the South Pacific
Area. It explained that the bulk of supplies would be dispatched from
San Francisco and that the primary procurement and shipping authorities
there were the commanding officers of the Port of Embarkation, the
Service Fore Subordinate Command and the Twelfth Naval DIstrict. More
detailed instructions for the performance of these general responsibilities
followed, most useful of which was a table indicating for each base
the channel of supply for each class of materials.4

This outline of the arrangements made for the logistic support
of the bases in the South Pacific has been given in some detail because
it supplements the discussion of the establishment of those bases in
Chapter V and because it indicates the character of the role which CNO
played in maintenance in the early part of the war. It should be noted
that it was Op-12, not Op-30, which was concerned. Later most of this
sort of planning was performed by area commanders. CNO again entered
significantly into maintenance problems only after its own reorganization
and the reconstitution of Op-12 as a logistics Plans Agency subsequently
reenforced by the Logistics Plans Unit and the Overall Logistic
Plan which are discussed in another section of this history. By that
time, it was becoming manifest that maintenance was a part, indeed a
very important part, of the Navy's logistics. In the earlier part of
1944, maintenance, as distinguished from establishment, matériel constituted
four-fifths of the naval tonnage dispatched from Pacific Coast
Ports. Nevertheless, it was only after the Under Secretary of the Navy

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returned from an inspection trip of the Pacific Ocean Area with the verdict
that bases were not being properly maintained that there was erected
in CNO a unit of which base maintenance was a primary mission.

The creation within Op-30 in March 1944 of the 2-B subdivision
has already been noted. It was itself divided into several sections, two
having cognizance over Atlantic and Pacific bases and the others being
charged with relations with the several Bureaus. This internal organization
was modeled very largely on that which had already existed and which now
continued as Op-30-2C.

Since the precept of the new subdivision was very general, the
character and scope of its mission were matters which it largely determined
for itself. Its rather more than general staff undertook such work as
their varying abilities, energy, and imagination suggested.

A not very successful effort was made to send representatives
on tours of inspection to discover at first hand just what were the conditions
and the deficiencies at advance bases. Area commanders, busy with
the problems of combat, showed a considerable disinclination toward entertaining
a group of quasi-spies. Another means of securing information
was also disappointing. Although an extensive questionnaire form
was drawn up,5
it was found that the official and personal business of such
officers who had just returned from advance bases as were available in
Washington occupied all their time. Seldom, moreover, did they possess
an adequately comprehensive knowledge of the full procedures and broad
problems of base maintenance. Thus, Op-30-2B fell back upon

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the development of significant information from data available in the
Continental United States.

The most ambitious and the most fruitful effort was a project
designed to uncover what were the proportions, the nature, and the channels
of existing maintenance activity. Since maintenance was being
handled almost exclusively by the Bureaus, each working independently of
the others and using its own accounting procedures, only the most unreliable
estimate could be made. The uncertainty was magnified by the
fact at seaboard no systematic distinction was drawn between initial and
maintenance shipments. It was recognized that much functional component
matériel was being diverted, more or less surreptitiously, to maintenance
ends. Such practice was inevitable since no firm link could be drawn
between augmentation and maintenance. Moreover, a great deal of matériel,
component and other, was sent to "FRAY", that is, to Pearl Harbor. Washington
received almost no information with regard to its later history.
Since components were integrated in the general base establishment after
their arrival at destination and thus lost their identity, and since an
appreciable roll-up of facilities at rearward bases was taking place,
no agency in Washington knew with certainty just what equipment any
base had. Only a continuing careful inventory, which was not taking
place, would have disclosed what needed to be maintained at what bases.
In short, maintenance was a hit or miss function.

In an effort to shed some light on the problem, the 2BP section
initiated a series of studies. The first stop was an effort to
discover in the broadest terms what would have to be maintained.

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Considerations of security here imposed a serious obstacle. Resort was
made to informal contacts with officers attached to Op-12 and CominCh.
By this method, albeit highly unsatisfactory because of uncertain validity,
an estimate was compiled in Op-30 of the number, location, and types
of ships, planes, components, and personnel to be maintained in the Pacific
in June 1945. These tables were then submitted to the Bureaus
as enclosures to a letter which requested of them data with regard to
maintenance requirements in that month. The Bureaus were instructed to
use the enclose data and any other which they deemed appropriate. The
types of items and the units of measurement were indicated for each
Bureau. Certain general principles and assumptions were stated in order
to establish a basis for th estimates and not as an indication of
change of policy. The more significant principles were: to resolve doubts
as to whether items were for maintenance in favor of maintenance, to
include items which flowed through the bases to maintain the fleet as
well as items destined to maintain the facilities at the bases, and to
assume intense activity in the forward area and low activity elsewhere.
It was requested that the estimates be broken down into the following
categories: the flow to bases in the Hawaiian Islands, the flow to
other existing (as of 1 April 1944) bases, the flow to bases expected
to be established. Finally, an explanatory statement was desired of how
the estimates were reached.6

The replies to this letter included copious statistics. They
revealed that the several Bureaus used the most highly varied methods of
estimating future requirements. Many different sorts of information,

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derived from numerous sources, mostly Naval and frequently field activities
with which the Bureau had special connections, were the foundation
of their guesses. Such they must be called, since the data form which
they were constructed were compiled for other purposes and reflected
divergent underlying assumptions. In some cases, special studies and
conferences had been stimulated by CNO's request. If one single fact
emerged as most significant, it was probably that few even moderately
satisfactory war usage factors or data had been worked out.

Nevertheless, the investigation appeared to be profitable. With
it as a foundation, an agenda was derived for a conference at CinCPOA's
headquarters, at which CNO was represented by Captain C. H. Sanders and
Lt. F. M. Bradley, who had played the major role in the estimate of
maintenance requirements. It was there agreed that the work already
done represented a step in the right direction and the "long-range
predictions of requirements subject to periodic review and revision,
as necessary, are essential for procurement planning and can be made
only on the basis of the strategic concept for future operations. Interchange
of logistical information between CNO and CinCPOA is essential
for good planning and long-range estimates of requirements will be prepared
by CinCPOA and submitted to CNO...." It was further agreed that,
upon receipt of the new Overall Logistics Plan, which would forecast by
quarters form 1 October 1944 to 1 October 1946, the "Naval ships, planes,
personnel and functional components to be wanted in all theaters,"
CinCPOA and CNO would each prepare studies of CinCPOA's maintenance requirements
for those periods. The results would then be exchanged for

The next step was the preparation by CNO of the estimates for
the next two years. This process was initiated by a letter addressed
to all Bureaus and several Divisions of Operations which paralleled the
letter of 4 July. The scope of the forecast was extended to include
the Atlantic and the time enlarged form one month to each quarter from
1 October 1944 to 1 July 1946. This latter change was possible because
the fundamental data were now, not the guesses of Op-30-2B, but the
official Overall Logistics Plan. This latter document, which is discussed
at length in another section of this history, served as a foundation
for the estimates which was sadly lacking in July. There is no
evidence that Op-30-2B's effort to compile such data was responsible for
the creation of the Overall Logistics Plan Committee. The two coincided
in time, however. In broad terms, the letter was like that of July.
BuPers and Op-32 were requested to furnish certain supplementary basic
data, to all the Bureaus and the Marine Corps. The general principles
were the same, the chief differences being a division by theaters of
operations, the inclusion of items furnished by and to the Army, a segregation
of Marine Corps maintenance from Naval, the addition of items
which, while not maintenance, were also not component material, and a
special schedule for petroleum products. Again, an explanatory statement
of the subsidiary data used and the methods of computation was
desired.8

The carefully compiled replies to this letter were forwarded
to CinCPOA in January and February.9
Further study in Washington resulted

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in the translation of these statistics into graphic form. These latter
were then distributed for the guidance of interested
agencies.10

These materials were primarily guides, but they also represented
first steps toward the development of reliable usage data. This
latter desideratum was simultaneously sought in other quarters. All
available sources were combed to determine the total actual Naval shipments,
except petroleum products, from Continental Ports to the Pacific
area between 1 January and 30 September 1944. The results were distributed
to a wide list in both statistical and graphic form which showed
the points of origin and destination.11
It was a handsome chart, but
some elements represented merely the best guess of members of Op-30-2BP.

One of the decisions reached at the conference at Pearl Harbor
was the necessity for usage data. Accordingly, Op-30 requested the
Bureaus to furnish all usage data useful to estimating maintenance requirements,
indicating the source, the experience period, the degree of
reliability, and the method by which it should be applied. The answers
were transmitted to CinCPOA in January. Six months later, Op-30 forwarded
to the Bureaus and other interested agencies ComServPac's estimate of
maintenance requirements for the period, 1 July 1945 to 31 December 1946,
which showed the factors upon which they were based. In the process of
establishing war usage factors, Op-30 did little more in the performance

Op-30-2B may also be credited with a number of somewhat less
considerable accomplishments which ameliorated the problems of maintenance.
It was recognized that the unsystematic flow of requisitions
immeasurably complicated the supply of the Pacific Fleet. Not only were
there many channels through which requisitions could flow, but frequently
several requisitions for the same item were sent to different supply
agencies in the hope of greater promptness. NSD Oakland along received
more than a thousand each day. In short, retail techniques were employed
for what was really wholesale business. It was clear that methods for
the consolidation of maintenance demands must be elaborated.

Certain palliative procedures had already been put into operation.
Early in the Pacific war, the USS Castor, and later other AKS's
were loaded with cargoes of consumables, largely GSK items, to replenish
directly the stocks of advance bases and of the fleet and thus to
reduce the number of requisitions with their attendant delay and red
tape. Later, similar cargoes, known as BBB, that is, Basic Boxed Base,
loads were dispatched for total unloading at selected bases. Still
other related techniques such as automatic supply were instituted by
several Bureaus for their own commodities. With none of these developments
was Op-30 directly concerned, since prior to 1944 it did not deal
with maintenance. While they represented an improvement, within a
limited field, over the system of individual requisitions, none of these

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methods was wholly satisfactory or suitable for general use. They
suffered from the hollow foundation of deficient and erroneous usage
experience which exaggerated the accumulation of excess stocks, inherent
in any wholesale method, because the varied circumstances of different
areas and bases entailed seriously divergent rates for the consumption
of the several classes of supplies. No system of block shipments could
be wholly free from this weakness.13

Nevertheless, so greatly had the Catalogue of Functional Components
simplified the complexities of initial movements that is adaptation
to maintenance procedures was an inescapable notion, particularly
since at least eighty percent of total Navy shipments were for maintenance
purposes. This concept was explored by Op-30-2B and BuS&A in 1944.
The preliminary work was then discussed in San Francisco and at Pearl
Harbor with members of the staffs of ComWesSeaFron and CinCPOA. These
conferences uncovered serious flaws in the broad concept and these two
commands gave only a most qualified endorsement. Fundamentally, there
were two types of criticisms. In the first place, it was felt that the
Catalogue would inevitably run into the same difficulties outlined in
the preceding paragraph. Second, it was believed that the same purpose
could be achieved by the creation of control agencies, through which
requisitions would be channeled and by means of which they could be consolidated.
Nevertheless, the project was continued, partly because it
was felt that the Catalogue would assist CinCPOA in estimating maintenance
requirements, just as the first Catalogue aided
establishment.14

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The end of the war found the maintenance catalogue still in
process of birth. It was the opinion of the officer who had immediate
supervision at that time that it would have miscarried in any event.
The requisition control agency had already been established in ComWesSeaFron.

The Requisition Control Unit grew out of problems which far
exceeded the cognizance of Op-30, although the uses of such an organization
had been suggested by members of the Scheduling Section as early
as June 1944. Its merits have already been indicated. Its establishment
was one consequence of the acute Pacific shipping crisis, caused
by the end of the war in Europe and the redeployment of a major part
of the Army. The extended negotiations which that intricate problem
entailed are discussed in the sections of the present study which deal
with the Naval Transportation Service and with the Control of Naval Logistics.
Op-30 played a minor part, chiefly one of securing information
with regard to the actual number of requisitions submitted. Nevertheless,
since it, rather than Op-05, maintained liaison with the field,
CNO's letter which approved and promulgated the plan drawn by ComWesSeaFron
bore its serial in July 1945.15

In this same general connection, Op-30 also endeavored to ensure
the rapid filling of requisitions. Thus it requested BuSandA to
arrange for other Supply Depots to institute the sort of follow-up procedure
already introduced at Bayonne. Bureaus were invited to survey
and to reduce so far as possible the classes and number of requisitions

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which required Bureau approval. SubordComdServPac had its complement
increased in order to expedite action on the many requisitions which it
handled. Similarly, Op-30 received from CinCPOA reports with regard to
critical shortages and then instructed the cognizant Bureaus to make
investigations and to report remedial action. in this fashion, it contributed
to the correction of significant logistic failures. A system
was established to make regular studies of action reports in order to
detect deficiencies. Many other examples might be cited of this some
sort of coordinating and liaison activity.16

Finally, Op-30-2B was the Navy's primary agency in connection
with storage control within the United States and the disposition of surplus
material at advance bases. These two complicated problems had only
tangential connection with the establishment or maintenance of advance
bases and do not warrant detailed analysis here. The first was accomplished
by the creation of a special committee representing each of the
Bureaus and offices of the Navy Department under the chairmanship of
Op-30-2B. This committee initiated studies of available storage space
and anticipated requirements. It then formulated and Op-30 promulgated
instructions for the utilization of such warehousing.17

Much more complex as the disposition of surplus property.
All phases of the total logistics process from the conservation of civilian
manpower to the optimum use of combat shipping and military

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personnel were involved. The elements of its solution were laid down in a
series of comprehensive directives promulgated by Op-30 on the basis of
instructions received from Op-12 and Op-05G.18
In this regard, as in so
many others, Op-30 played its regular part as liaison agency between
CNO and other naval commands.

Undoubtedly, the maintenance work of Op-30 was useful. Yet
it does not appear that its activity fundamentally influenced the pattern
of base maintenance.